2009 Tony Award Nominees: 'Best Direction Of A Play'

Phyllida Lloyd (Mary Stuart)
Lloyd is one of Britain's most important theater and opera directors. Internationally she is best known for her work on Mamma Mia, the Tony® -nominated musical sensation currently playing in sixteen countries. She directed the Golden Globe® -nominated film version of Mamma Mia, which has become the highest-grossing movie helmed by a woman, as well as the highest- grossing movie ever in the UK. Her other stage credits include major productions at the National Theatre, RSC, Royal Court Theatre, Bristol Old Vic Theatre and Shakespeare's Old Globe.

Bartlett Sher (Joe Turner's Come and Gone)
LCT: South Pacific (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), Awake and Sing! (Tony nomination), The Light in the Piazza (Tony nomination). Artistic Director of Seattle's Intiman Theatre, credits there include the world premieres of Prayer For My Enemy and Singing Forest by Craig Lucas (both also Long Wharf Theatre) and Nickel and Dimed; plays by Chekhov, Wilder, Shakespeare, Goldoni and Tony Kushner. Opera: The Barber of Seville (Metropolitan Opera), Roméo et Juliette (Salzburg Festival), Mourning Becomes Electra (Seattle Opera and New York City Opera). New York: Prayer For My Enemy (Playwrights); Cymbeline (2001 Callaway Award for Best Director; first American Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare Company), Waste (2000 Best Play Obie), Don Juan (all TFANA). He is a member of the TCG Board. Upcoming productions: Tales of Hoffmann at the Met and Bruce Lee: Journey to the West, a new musical by David Yazbek and David Henry Hwang.

Matthew Warchus (God of Carnage)
Matthew Warchus was recently represented on Broadway by Boeing, Boeing. His other Broadway credits are Yasmina Reza's Art and Life (x) 3; Follies, and True West. He has received three Tony Award and two Drama Desk Award nominations. Off-Broadway, he directed Ms. Reza's The Unexpected Man. His numerous West End credits include The Norman Conquests; Speed-the-Plow; God of Carnage; The Lord of the Rings; The Life of Stuff; Art; True West; The Unexpected Man; Our House; Tell Me on a Sunday, and Endgame. At the National Theatre he has directed Volpone, Life (x) 3, and Buried Child. At the RSC he has directed Henry V, The Devil is an Ass, Hamlet and The Winter's Tale. His operas, for Opera North, The Royal Opera and English National Opera, include Troilus and Cressida, The Rake's Progress, Falstaff and Cosi Fan Tutte.

Matthew Warchus (The Norman Conquests)
Matthew Warchus was recently represented on Broadway by Boeing, Boeing. His other Broadway credits are Yasmina Reza's Art and Life (x) 3; Follies, and True West. He has received three Tony Award and two Drama Desk Award nominations. Off-Broadway, he directed Ms. Reza's The Unexpected Man. His numerous West End credits include The Norman Conquests; Speed-the-Plow; God of Carnage; The Lord of the Rings; The Life of Stuff; Art; True West; The Unexpected Man; Our House; Tell Me on a Sunday, and Endgame. At the National Theatre he has directed Volpone, Life (x) 3, and Buried Child. At the RSC he has directed Henry V, The Devil is an Ass, Hamlet and The Winter's Tale. His operas, for Opera North, The Royal Opera and English National Opera, include Troilus and Cressida, The Rake's Progress, Falstaff and Cosi Fan Tutte.